Scientists hope to speed space travel by using a series of satellites, each emitting a high-powered plasma beam. That beam can push a spacecraft forward rapidly from satellite to satellite. Researchers say that MagBeam technology can reduce the travel time to Mars from roughly six months to 40 days.
Scientists are looking into a futuristic technology that could lead to interplanetary missions and significantly improve cancer treatments to boot.
Researchers at NASA are looking into whether electromagnets can be used to send rockets into space, a technological leap that could dramatically cut launch costs.
A rocket powered by thin films of nuclear material could get to Mars in as little as two weeks, according to scientists in Israel. With conventional engines, the journey would last almost a year, they say.
NASA scientists are building a hot little ride: Vasimr, a rocket that runs on million-degree plasma and could someday fuel a fast-track trip to Mars.
Researchers at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville are trying to find a way to harness this collision and use it in engines that could propel spacecraft to speeds approaching science fiction proportions.
NASA scientists say that spacecraft fueled by antimatter engines could be only decades away.
An antimatter-aided space drive might bring deep-space missions within our grasp. Engineers at NASA and Pennsylvania State University say that by the end of the century, spacecraft could reach the edges of the Solar System and beyond. They believe an antimatter drive could lead to a one-year round trip to Jupiter, a five-year trek to the heliopause--the boundary separating the Solar System from interstellar space--and, in a 50-year trip, the Oort Cloud, source of the comets.
NASA will start testing a small-scale fusion reactor in about a month in what may be the first step towards building fusion rocket engines that could open the solar system to settlement and tourist traffic.
NASA's Advanced Space Transportation Program looks at ways to turn science fiction propulsion technologies into reality.